Impact Nashville Initiatives
Nashville’s comprehensive strategic plan, entitled “Impact Nashville,” seeks to leverage local human, institutional and cultural capital through impactful volunteerism directed toward two of the mayor’s top priorities: public education and the environment. With measurable outcomes in each of these areas, and with Impact Nashville promoting service as a core community responsibility, the standards of volunteerism across the public and private sectors will be further raised.
Initiatives
Impact Nashville focuses on educational volunteerism and environmental projects applied toward flood recovery and prevention. The Impact Nashville team is implementing these initiatives while also promoting, increasing and raising the standards of volunteerism across our community. From September 30, 2010 through August 30, 2011 2,520 volunteers have given 18,626 hours towards Impact Nashville initiatives.
Education
Pressing Challenge: Third-grade reading scores on the standardized Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) decreased from the 2008 to the 2009 school years.
Initiative: To address this challenge, volunteers will tutor/ mentor select kindergarten through second-grade students during the school day by reading with them using the PENCIL Foundation’s Reading Partners curriculum.
Update August 2011: 104 volunteers; 1,496 volunteer hours; 172 students served; Average increase of 7.65 reading levels (goal is 2 reading levels)
Pressing Challenge: Only 10% of Nashville’s 21,500 public middle school students participate in structured afterschool programming. Academic achievement scores at the end of middle school (8th grade) is a good predictor of a student's college and career readiness at high school graduation. Additionally, police statistics show that juvenile crime and child victimization are more likely to occur from 3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m., when young people are more likely to be unsupervised.
Initiative: To address these challenges, Impact Nashville will engage middle school students in scholastically structured afterschool programming and positive older-peer mentorship. Impact Nashville will partner a high school student with a high-need middle school student to mentor/ tutor in reading comprehension, math or general homework assignments in a structured AfterSchool Zone Alliance (NAZA) program.
Update August 2011: 91% improvement in mentees’ (Littles) attitudes post program
89% improvement in mentors’ (Bigs) attitudes post program:
30.3% increased mentees’ (Littles) attendance rate compared to non-mentees’ attendance rate
Environment-Energy Efficiency
Pressing Challenge: Tennessee has a higher-than-average level of energy intensity (consumes more energy per dollar of economic activity than most other states), and Tennessee’s residential energy consumption, as a percentage of its overall use, exceeds that of the South and the nation.
Initiative: To address these challenges, volunteers will integrate energy-efficient components in the rebuild and repairs of flood damaged homes, thereby reducing Nashville’s carbon footprint.
Update August 2011: 31 homes; 628 volunteers; 12,325 volunteer hours; $16,776 volunteer economic impact
Pressing Challenge: In Davidson County, per-capita residential greenhouse gas emissions are 25% higher than the national average.
Initiative: To address this challenge, volunteers will educate and encourage homeowners to increase the number of energy-efficient retrofits in existing homes across Davidson County by registering homeowners for Nashville Electric Service's In-Home Energy Evaluation Program.
Update August 2011: 88 home evaluations; 60 home retrofits; 46 volunteers; 138 volunteer hours
Environmental Flood Recovery
Pressing Challenge: The historic 2010 flood filled Nashville’s waterways with an abundance of flow-inhibiting debris, but the exact amount of debris is not yet known. That lack of data, coupled with the presence of the debris, places our community and environment at risk in the event of a heavy rain.
Initiative: To address these challenges, volunteers will canvas Davidson County’s waterways to identify critical areas and types of debris. Teams will then be trained and mobilized in volunteer-friendly areas to remove debris. Information regarding debris that is too large or unsafe to handle will be recorded and escalated.
Update August 2011: 100 miles of waterways assessed; 14 miles cleaned; 44.5 tons of debris removed; 564 volunteers; 1,747 volunteer hours
Stormwater Management
Pressing Challenge: Impervious surfaces in urban areas have increased by 20% over the past two decades. Urban tree canopy has decreased by 17% over the last 20 years.
Initiative: To address these challenges, volunteers will plant 1,000 non-invasive trees within two planting seasons in targeted neighborhoods or residential properties that will have the most impact on stormwater management. The trees will simultaneously increase urban tree canopy in targeted flood-affected neighborhoods.
Update August 2011: 745 trees planted; 406 volunteers; 1,218 volunteer hours
Pressing Challenge: The May 2010 flood damaged more than 11,000 homes in Davidson County.
Initiative: To address this challenge, volunteers will design and plant rain gardens on residential properties in selected neighborhoods. They will focus on the flood-damaged areas in which the gardens will have the strongest positive impact on stormwater-mitigation, erosion and drainage.
Update August 2011: 93 rain gardens planted; 731 volunteers; 2,193 volunteer hours
Infrastructure Challenges:
Create a comprehensive portal website for impactful volunteerism in Davidson County.- Design education and measurement tools to teach and empower private and public agencies to engage volunteers in innovative and impactful ways.